Monti, in Twitter Q&A, says new voting law priority for Italy

ROME (Reuters) - Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Saturday if he wins February's parliamentary election one of his first acts would be to overhaul the voting law to improve democracy and government stability.Monti, 69, who last week confirmed he would lead a centrist coalition in the February 24-25 vote, called himself a "bit of a pioneer" in politics during nearly 2 hours of #MontiLive...

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Ohio sheriff confronts protesters in football rape case

handled a high school rape investigation …more RELATED CONTENTView PhotoProtesters gathered in front of …STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (Reuters) - A county sheriff under fire for how he has handled a high school rape investigation faced down a raucous crowd of protesters on Saturday and said no further suspects would be charged in a case that has rattled Ohio football country.Ma'lik Richmond and Trenton Mays,...

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Canada meets key aboriginal demand amid blockades

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's prime minister will meet with native leaders next week to discuss social and economic issues, an olive branch to an angry aboriginal movement that has blockaded rail lines and threatened to close Canada's borders with the United States.Stephen Harper made no mention of the aboriginal protests in a statement on Friday announcing the January 11 meeting.But the meeting is...

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Kuwaiti gets two years for insulting emir on Twitter

Kuwaiti gets two years for insulting emir on TwitterKUWAIT (Reuters) - A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison for insulting the country's ruler on Twitter, a lawyer following the case said, as the Gulf Arab state cracks down on criticism of the authorities on social media.According to the verdict on Sunday, published by online newspaper Alaan, a tweet written by Rashid Saleh al-Anzi...

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Analysis: For tech investors, it's hard to know when to bolt

When Hewlett-Packard Co agreed to buy British software company Autonomy in August last year for $11.1 billion, two well-known investors made diametrically different bets on how the big deal would play out.To short seller Jim Chanos, who had been raising red flags on Autonomy for years and had started shorting shares of HP in 2011, the deal was another nail in the coffin of the Silicon Valley tech...

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The Trouble with Adam Lanza's DNA

In a rare and now controversial investigation, scientists have been asked by Connecticut's medical examiner to study Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza's DNA — but the DNA community doesn't think that's such a good idea. Though details on the research are scant, University of Connecticut geneticists will apparently be looking for biological clues that might explain Lanza's extreme violent behavior. The...

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Record-breaking 17.4 million Android and iOS devices activated on Christmas Day; tablets top smartphones

More Android and iOS devices were activated on Christmas Day this year than on any other day. According to analytics firm Flurry, 17.4 million Android and iOS devices were activated during the holiday, an increase of 332% compared to an average of 4 million activations per day. This year’s numbers were found to be more than two and a half times larger than Christmas Day last year, which saw 6.8 million...

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iOS apps see Christmas sales spike shrink in 2012

Distimo just released its statistics on Christmas Day app downloads and revenue growth… and the download spike is far smaller than it was last year. Back in 2011, Christmas Day iOS app download volume spiked 230% above the December average. This year, the increase was just 87% — far below industry expectations. The revenue spike came in at 70%.[More from BGR: Google names 12 best Android apps of 2012]Interestingly,...

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BlackBerry’s all-out price war in the UK

The Curve 9320 is the last of the BlackBerry phones using the old operating system, and it is the cornerstone of RIM’s attempt to salvage its Christmas season. The UK is Research In Motion’s (RIMM) most important market in Europe. The latest Kantar World Panel numbers for August-October period showed BlackBerry’s share of the UK market crashing from 19% to 8% in a year, but RIM is now executing the...

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Nokia Siemens to close services unit: sources

FRANKFURT/HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia Siemens Networks' (NSN) services unit faces closure as an essential contract with Deutsche Telekom will not be extended, two people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. One person said the closure, effective en 2013 would be announced on Wednesday during a workers' meeting in Kassel. NSN Services, which generates under 100 million euros ($130.7 million)...

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Digital rights groups blast Dutch computer plan

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Digital rights groups have called on the Dutch justice minister to retract a proposal that would give the country's police the right to break into computers, including foreign citizens' computers, to combat cybercrime. Minister Ivo Opstelten says investigators have the right to install Internet taps with court permission, citing the need to fight online pedophiles. That sometimes...

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Nokia Siemens cerrará su división de servicios: fuentes

FRANCFORT/HELSINKI (Reuters) - La división de servicios de la empresa de redes Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) enfrenta su cierre debido a la cancelación de un contrato esencial con la empresa de telecomunicaciones alemana Deutsche Telekom, dijeron el martes dos fuentes con conocimiento del tema. Una persona dijo que el cierre, que se hará efectivo en el 2013, se anunciará el miércoles durante una reunión...

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Data: New (physical) book chronicles the virtual

NEW YORK (AP) — We question. We research. We catalog. We quantify. We aggregate, calculate, communicate, analyze, extrapolate and conclude. And eventually, if we're fortunate and thoughtful, we understand. These are the contours of the society that has taken shape in the past generation with the rise of an unstoppable, invisible force that changes human lives in ways from the microscopic to the gargantuan:...

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